Conventionally, a steering assistance apparatus has been developed which assists drive operation by displaying a rear view from a vehicle taken by a camera mounted on the vehicle on a monitor and superimposing on the monitor an expected locus when a vehicle is backing up in response to information such as related to steering angle detected by a steering angle sensor. According to such a steering assistance apparatus, a driver, for example, can park into a parking space by driving the vehicle while viewing the expected locus on a monitor. However, the driver cannot easily grasp the positional relation between the target parking space and the vehicle because the rear view taken by the camera mounted on the vehicle changes in the screen of the monitor as the vehicle proceeds.
Therefore, Patent Documents 1-3, for example, disclose a parking assistance apparatus for taking an image of an area around the entrance of a parking space by a fixed camera mounted at the parking facility side, transmitting the taken image data to the vehicle side to display a data on the display portion of the vehicle, calculating a leading locus from the position of the vehicle to a target parking position in the parking space, and displaying the leading locus superimposed on the taken image data. The vehicle backs up to the target parking position, and when the vehicle reaches an area around the entrance of the parking space, the vehicle is displayed in the image taken by the fixed camera of the parking facility side. Then the parking is performed by moving the vehicle along the leading locus. As the image taken by the fixed camera is fixed regardless of movement of the vehicle, it becomes easier for the driver to grasp the positional relation between the target parking position and the vehicle.
[Patent Document 1] JP 2007-148472 A
[Patent Document 2] JP 2007-161118 A
[Patent Document 3] JP 2007-161119 A